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GRANT DUFF, Sir EVELYN MOUNTSTUART

GRANT DUFF, Sir EVELYN MOUNTSTUART (b. 1863, d. Bath, 1926), British diplomat serving successively in Rome, Tehran (1892-94 when he passed a Persian language exam), St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Berlin, then London. In London he was in attendance on Moẓaffar-al-Din Shah during his state visit in 1902, and in January 1903 accompanied Viscount Downe’s Garter Mission to Tehran. Later that same year Grant Duff was appointed secretary to the British Legation, Tehran, and was chargé d’affaires from September 1905 to September 1906, a difficult time that coincided with the Constitutional Revolution (q.v.) there and included the three-week bast (q.v.) in July-August 1906 of 14,000 Persians within the Legation’s compound. In late 1906 Grant Duff was appointed to Madrid, then Budapest before becoming minister plenipotentiary to Switzerland in 1913. He retired in 1916 owing to ill-health and was knighted.